The Invisible Cloak

Mr Amitabh Singh spent 25 eventful years in the professional world. Through hard work, smart approach and timely manoeuvres he climbed rapidly the ladder of growth and rose to the rank of a Senior Vice President in the organisation.

He was known to be a hard task master, unrealistically demanding in terms of performance and ruthless in decision making. His team members were quite scared to enter his office and during the weekly business meetings, he would blast his juniors who made mistakes or were not up to his expectation as regard to delivery or execution. He made it a point to run off some of the weaklings of his team at every given opportunity rather than help them improve.

If any of his team members spotted Singh Sahib in a restaurant or a shopping mall with his wife, he panicked like a sheep pushed inside the cage of a hungry lion. In a swift turnabout, the fleet-footed subordinate would rapidly disappear from the scene, dragging his wife and children as well and avoid a face-off. But not before hurling inaudible expletives at Mr Singh!

The contractors who provide products and services to the company were never comfortable in dealing with Mr Singh. If there was any issue like payment delay, deduction of penalty, faulty execution or defective products, he did not miss such opportunity to summon the contractors or vendors.

He made them stand in his office not showing the required curtsey of offering a chair and disdainfully lectured on their mistakes. He made sure that his door was kept open so that his team members outside could hear his screams and shouts thereby terrorising them as well.

The contractors who did not accept such arrogant and unprofessional behaviour had to pay for it dearly. Mr Singh ensured that on some flimsy pretext, they were blacklisted from doing business with the company in future. That’s why most of the vendors preferred to listen to his caustic lectures for the sake of their business but swore to get even with him through their business execution means later on.

Mr Singh boasted about the respect he commanded and his might in front his wife and narrated the incidents with a liberal dose of over-dramatisation. He proudly proclaimed himself as the ‘Royal Bengal Tiger’ held on a lofty pedestal by the entire industry.

Inebriated with the power of his job, Mr Singh also made the grave mistake of expecting his own wife and children to God-worship him. It created friction, his family members were not going to cower by his inflated ego.

Then all of a sudden the unexpected happened. Mr Singh lost his job; he was asked to leave his office within an hours’ time with no explanations given. A settlement cheque of one month of salary in lieu of the notice period and a goodwill parting bonus of two lakh of rupees was handed over to him.

There was a buzz in the entire office when his termination formalities were being carried out. His relieved subordinates don’t even look at him, forget about standing up in respect (which they did every day otherwise) when he walked out of his office for the last time. That painful blow shattered Mr Singh.

A couple of months passed by, he was yet to secure a new job as having reached a senior level the choices were quite limited. Gradually the months turn into a year and a jobless ex Senior VP became a mere shadow of his earlier self. Mr Singh suffered from a serious identity crisis as he was frequently ignored and at times frowned upon by his earlier professional associates whenever their paths crossed.

For the other people in the society, he was just one of those burnt out, early retired guys not of any relevance. Mr Singh is now isolated and confined to the four walls of his apartment, discarded by the corporate world, neglected by his own family and refused to be accommodated by the society!

For the first time he realised that his notions were all wrong - stripped off his official tag and the associated power, he felt naked and exposed to all the unknown elements of a society. It was too late for him to repair the relationships he had damaged with his arrogance earlier. It was too late to develop a friendship based on mutual respect. Most importantly, in spite of realising his folly, his inflated ego still refused to lower its ugly head.

While being at the helm of affairs, the whole world was at his feet. Followers, power and money – all aplenty. Mr Singh got drunk with it but everything disappeared in a jiffy the moment he was stripped of his position. Very rapidly, the memories of Mr Singh, the erstwhile honcho from the corporate world was washed away by the swift current of time into the limbo of oblivion.

We all tend to assume few things wrongly in our professional life. As we progress in our career, the power and status that come with the positions or bestowed on us are taken for granted to remain for the rest of our lives.

There is a lack of introspection in most of us due to the paucity of time in our lives and therefore we fail to realise that these invisible feather cloaks of power, status and money which wrap us lovingly during the time of our ascent quietly fly away the moment we tumble down in our professional journey.

The world of business is a place where the ultimate goal of everyone is to make money, be it the employer or the employee, the investor or the customer, the contractor or the vendor. The impressive corporate jargons of growth, revenue, profitability, ROI, stock price, EPS, PE ratio etc. lead to one basic goal – how much money shall I make?

Thus in such a mechanical and somewhat ruthless world where everyone is out there to make money albeit in a legitimate way, it is the power of one's chair which draws attention, fear and respect, not the individual who occupies it. When he vacates the position he can’t carry the attributes of the position with him.

Failure to comprehend and accept this causes people to suffer tremendously when they stand in front of stark, naked reality. Mr Singh is one such example who remained drunk in power, misused it and was arrogant by its influence till he got the rudest jolt.

It is important to recognise that the power of position is temporary and illusory. If we get hooked to it, we will be chasing a mirage in the desert all our life. If we learn to detach from it, we will learn to manage the pain and sufferings during the roller coaster journey called LIFE.